Blood Winter

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  She said nothing to anyone but strode inside, carrying him through the fortress to the angel vault. She stood in the middle, facing the fountain. There were only the two slabs for the angels. Her chest hurt with the emotion building up inside. She couldn’t stop crying, and her nose was running. She sniffed and went around to the other side of the fountain. The ground was covered in gray ash. She scraped it away with her foot. A few seconds later, Tyler joined her, peeling off his tattered shirt and swiping the floor clean.

  When he was through, Max knelt and laid Simon down, straightening his limbs and smoothing the hair away from his face. The pressure in her chest grew, churning unbearably. Her skin felt tight, like it would split from the building strain.

  Suddenly, she lunged to her feet. Tyler stood behind her. His hands hung at his sides, and his face was empty. She wanted to say something to him, but she didn’t know how to comfort him. She didn’t know how to comfort herself. Instead, she slid past him and back out into the corridor.

  Giselle was there, along with her other Blades and most of the Sunspears—Max’s daylight counterparts. She ignored them all, striding past as if wolves were chasing her.

  She should have gone to eat and replenish her energy stores. Instead, she went to her apartment. She needed to be alone. Inside, the wards prevented her Prime power from leaking out onto everybody else. She’d asked Giselle to install them when people started complaining about the torrent of power that spun out of control when she and Alexander were together. It was now the one place of real privacy she had, where she could hide and let her emotions get away from her.

  The door shut behind her. She leaned back against it, closing her eyes. Instantly, she opened them again. She didn’t really want to be alone. She didn’t want to think. She ached for Alexander more than she could say.

  She almost reached for her phone to call him, but it was gone, along with her vest. Not that she would have actually called. After the way he’d walked away from her, after the way she’d driven him off, what would she say? Sorry I was a bitch, but I need you now, so do you mind pretending I’m sane and you still want me? At least, until the next time I freak out again and push you away? That would go over well.

  She went to the bathroom and peeled off her stinking clothing and scrubbed away the blood, dirt, and demon goo. She stayed in the shower for more than an hour. Eventually, the sobs came, tearing at her with wrenching violence. She held them back as long as she could, but they wouldn’t be contained forever. She stood in the steam, leaning against the wall as her grief and guilt for Simon, Niko, and the angels poured out of her.

  When the storm was over, she was drained. Like a robot, she went to her bedroom and dressed in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. That left her with nothing to do but think, the thing she wanted to do least of all.

  She sat on the edge of her bed. It was still rumpled and smelled of Alexander and sex. She rested her elbows on her knees and pressed her forehead against her knotted hands. It wasn’t until then that she realized her floor was covered in a layer of red dust.

  She straightened and tried to pick her feet off the floor. They didn’t move. She could do nothing but watch as the dust collected into two long snakes. They wound around her legs and slid up over her thighs and stomach, circling her body until the dust covered her like a second skin from head to toe.

  When she was completely enshrouded, she found herself being gently bent back onto the bed.

  Darkness dragged her down.

  THOR AND ALEXANDER ELECTED TO GO NORTH TO Divide, then up through Butte and west on 90 for the return trip home. Somewhere between Anaconda and Deer Lodge, Alexander gave a guttural noise and flung open his door.

  “What the hell?”

  Thor jammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. Alexander launched from the truck, ran a few feet, and then stopped and turned in a circle. His Prime was frenzied. Every muscle was corded. There was no enemy. It was far away, and it was not threatening him at all.

  “Max!” he shouted up to the sky, as if she could hear him, as if he could help her.

  He pushed his senses out, but it was too far to see her spirit flame. He swallowed and tasted her pain on the back of his tongue. He got lost in it, feeling with her. Instinct drove him. He started running along the road, drawn by her need. Then it turned. The physical pain was gone, but something far deeper and more profound was overwhelming her.

  The air went out of him, and he sagged to the ground, his head bowing. He felt the wash of her grief and guilt. So heavy, so deep. Like falling into a bottomless pit of tar. It pulled him down, trapping him in thick, inescapable glue. He could not breathe. Loss smothered him, pushing the air out of his lungs and stopping his heart.

  “Alexander.” Thor shook his shoulder. “Alexander! What’s going on? Talk to me.”

  Slowly, Alexander swam up out of Max’s emotions. He sucked in a heavy breath and then another, then clambered to his feet. He felt a thousand years old. This was the weight she carried. No wonder she had no room for him. The burden of death, loss, and guilt was already too heavy.

  He shook away the thought. It did not have to be that way. She could choose him. He smiled humorlessly. When pigs flew.

  “What the hell is going on?” Thor demanded again.

  Alexander wiped a hand over his face. “Someone has died.”

  “Not Max?”

  Alexander shook his head. “No. Someone else.”

  “You gonna call her? Find out what happened?”

  “Not now. I do not want to distract her.” Nor did she want to hear from him. She did not want a reminder that she had given another piece of her heart away. That at any moment it could be broken, too.

  “We should go,” he said curtly, and returned to the truck, turning his head to the window, silence pooling around him.

  They only got as far as Drummond before dawn struck and they had to pull off the road.

  Things there remained relatively ordinary. No rock trolls leaped out to smash them to smithereens, and no forests crawled over the ground to get them. Everything looked a lot as it had before the Change: trees, grass, rivers, rocks, and hills. Nothing looked all that menacing.

  Still, neither Blade liked the idea of spending the night away from Horngate trapped in a light-sealed box in the back of the truck. It left them vulnerable to attacks, and Alexander doubted that the preacher witch cared whether it was day or night. Nor did anyone else. The box was entirely sealed from light in ordinary human ways, then reinforced and armored with magic. Still, Alexander doubted it would hold up to one of the preacher witch’s determined attacks.

  They pulled off the highway and drove up into the hills, following a forest-service road. Thor parked under a copse of trees, and they got out and pulled limbs down to cover the truck. They climbed into the box in the back and slid the locking bars into place before activating the wards. The box filled most of the bed of the truck and was long enough to allow both Blades to lie down, so long as they were slightly propped at one end.

  They ate, finishing off the supplies Magpie had packed for them. Max still had not called when Alexander drifted off. His body was craving healing sleep, although his mind stewed over the possibilities of what had happened.

  The dream began almost instantly, as if it had been lying in wait for him.

  It was daylight. The sun was high overhead, yet he did not burn. He seemed to be floating above Missoula. He could see the fork in the river at Kelly Island, the highway stretching east and west, the airport, Rattlesnake Canyon, Mount Sentinel, and Pattee Canyon. Suddenly, he was hurtling downward. He felt himself flinching and tried to pull back, but he was helpless to stop himself.

  He plunged down, the world blurring into shades of green and gray. He smashed into the ground and was pulled upright like a puppet, none the worse for wear. He found himself dangling from a string knotted through the top of his skull, his feet inches from the ground.

  He was in a clear area surrounded by makeshift sheds,
tents, and booths. Snow domed up on top of the buildings, and the tents sagged beneath the weight. Some had collapsed where they were not reinforced. The snow on the ground was trampled and gray. People wandered up and down among the booths in heavy jackets, eyeing one another suspiciously. Everybody went armed.

  That much Alexander took in as he was twitched around into place. He found himself facing an open space just beyond the line of booths. He was not alone. All of Horngate seemed to have been pulled there, at least judging from those he could see. Every Shadowblade and Sunspear, every witch, every ordinary human. Even the children. All of them were semitransparent and dangled from red strings. Alexander was really beginning to hate that color.

  They hung in a circle several people deep. He tried to shift his eyes from side to side to search for Max, to see who was absent and therefore dead, but he was frozen in place. Then his attention was stolen by the tableau in the center of the circle.

  Snow had ceased to fall, and in its place, red dust sifted from the leaden sky. It covered the snow in the center of the circle, turning it scarlet. A moment later, it stopped.

  Seconds ticked past as nothing happened. Then Alexander heard shouts behind him.

  “Run!” screamed a familiar voice. “Run, Carrie!” It was Max’s niece, Tory.

  Carrie Lydman staggered into the circle. She was crying. Her cheek was sliced open, and her mouth was swollen and purple. She obviously could not see the specters from Horngate. She fell, and Tory raced up and grabbed her arm and jerked her upright.

  “Come on, Carrie!”

  Tory dragged her friend forward. She had scratches along one side of her face, and her nose was bleeding and swollen. Someone had ripped her shirt open, and her right tennis shoe was gone.

  The two girls barely made another three steps before people swarmed them. The attackers carried pitchforks and baseball bats. They circled the girls, prodding at them and smacking at their legs to make them fall. Carrie went down on her stomach with a shriek. She rolled to her back and sat up. She was splotched with red from the dust. She looked like she was drenched in blood.

  Tory grabbed for the weapons, swearing and kicking. She wrestled a bat from someone and started swinging it. Wood cracked loudly. She ducked and swung and tripped over Carrie. She fell headlong. Instantly, she was grabbed. A burly man with yellow hair got her in a choke hold, while a woman duct-taped her arms to her sides. Someone else bound her legs. All the while, Tory was spitting and twisting.

  “You fuckers are going to pay for this! My aunt will grind you into dog food. She’ll tie your dicks in knots and make you eat your own balls!”

  If he could, Alexander would have smiled at her nerve. She certainly had Max’s blood running through her veins.

  The man choking her let her go, and someone else slapped her hard enough to twist her head around. Her lip split. Before she could say anything, someone else planted a hand on her chest and shoved her into the snow. Meanwhile, Carrie lay on her stomach. She had also been bound and was sobbing wildly as she lifted her head out of the snow.

  Alexander struggled to get away from his bonds to help her, but he was nothing more than a ghost audience at this spectacle.

  The attackers backed up and left the girls alone.

  “That one is a hellcat,” said the burly man with the yellow hair as he pointed at Tory. “Little bitch bit me.” He shook his hand.

  “Reverend Sterling will take care of her,” said another man with a potbelly and a beard. He leered at the girls. “Know what’s going to happen to you, pretty things? The Reverend is gonna cleanse your soul, and after that, he’ll put buns in your ovens so you can be mothers to the new earth. The Godly earth. That is, if he don’t burn you for witches first. Better hope you pass his tests, or you’ll find yourself at your own barbecue.”

  He chortled, and several of his companions laughed along with him. One of the women gave him a disapproving look, crossing her arms as the captive girls squirmed against their bonds.

  “Elijah, you better shut up. Reverend Sterling is a great man. He’s the right hand of God. He’s not going to dirty himself on the likes of these filthy whores. If they aren’t witches, they’re consorting with ’em. They’re devils. Their wombs are rotten. They couldn’t give birth to anything good.”

  The man called Elijah gave her a startled look, then looked down, shuffling his feet. “Yes, Mary,” he said. “I just figured if anyone could make them holy enough to carry his seed, the Reverend could.”

  She stared and clearly had no good response to this. If she argued, she was denigrating her master. If she agreed, then she was tacitly saying that her master could rape and impregnate the girls.

  Alexander wanted to spit. He doubted that Mary cared for the health of Carrie or Tory. She was simply jealous of any woman Sterling might want to climb on top of. Alexander wondered if her name was really Mary, or if it had been given to her by Sterling. The same with Elijah. The biblical theme was highly coincidental.

  He got his answer when Mary turned to the woman beside her. “Mary, go tell the Reverend we’ve caught the girls.”

  The mousey Mary ran off. Her coat flapped open to reveal a slightly rounded belly. She was pregnant. The bearded man’s threat was real.

  Nobody spoke as they waited. Tory continued to struggle on the ground, but Carrie lay still on her stomach, tears rolling down her face as she whimpered. Alexander could hear her saying “Please” and “Oh, God,” but mostly her words were unintelligible.

  At last, he heard the sounds of many tramping feet. A brilliant light grew up behind him, casting harsh shadows on the ground. The clearing flooded with people. They strode through the transparent collection of Horngate people and formed a circle around the two girls. Then Benjamin Sterling arrived.

  He floated in on a swirl of the red dust. He was surrounded by a brilliant yellow corona, so bright it was hard to look at. He came to hover over the girls, and silence fell as everyone waited for him to speak.

  Alexander stared in dismay. Witches could not fly, float, or hover. It took too much power. For Sterling to make such a casual show of it meant he was far more powerful than a mere witch. He could be a full mage or even a sorcerer. No wonder he could permeate Horngate’s wards with his dust. No wonder he could manipulate the rock troll, the forest, and the salamanders, not to mention pulling all of Horngate into this nightmare, which was all too real.

  Sterling folded his hands over his chest as he examined the two captives.

  “You poor sinners,” he said softly, his voice warm and rich. “Look what the devil has brought you to. I ache for you, for the evil you have harbored in your hearts.”

  “Evil?” Tory shouted, managing to sit up. “You’re the fucking evil asshole. You’re a murderer, burning people at the stake. Where’s my uncle, you son of a bitch? What did you do to him?”

  “Your uncle?” He shook his head regretfully. “That is unfortunate. That means you have no soul. I’m sorry to hear that. God cannot help those birthed from the womb of evil. I had dearly hoped you could be saved.”

  He shook his head and bowed it as if praying, then straightened.

  “Bring them,” he ordered. “We will bestow God’s mercy on them.”

  “Both are rotten?” muttered Elijah. “Seems a waste.”

  Sterling overheard. “It is no waste if we rid the earth of this tide of corruption. Would you lie with them? Would you risk implanting your seed where it can only grow into something wicked and malignant to God?” He swung his hand out, pointing at the now-cowering man. “You are no sinner, Elijah, but you must repent. Whip him.”

  Elijah’s coat and shirt were stripped away, and he was dragged to a nearby steel signpost. His hands were duct-taped above his head. Someone produced a whip, and the crowd counted as the stripes were laid down. Fifteen in all. Elijah’s back was a bloody mess at the end of it, and he had slid down to his knees.

  Sterling drew closer, and the duct tape fell away.

  “R
ise, my son. Be embraced by your sisters and brothers. Share in God’s love. You have paid your debt to Him, and you are cleansed. You see? The red dust does not touch you. It touches none of you,” he said, opening his arms wide. “It falls only on sinners. All of you stand proud before me, an army for the King on High. God wants you to know He believes in you, and He knows that you will tear out the devil’s roots on this earth. He has sent me to you to prepare this world for His coming. Together we will destroy the evil that has washed across our hallowed shores. We are the Last Stand of Earth!”

  His voice rang out, and his audience stared, rapt. As he ended, they shouted, and someone broke into “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Every voice picked it up until it drowned out every other sound. Even Elijah stood and sang as others handed him his clothing.

  Sterling let it go on for a while, then raised his hands. An instant hush descended.

  “Now, my friends, we have hard work to do. The people here in the River Market have knowingly consorted with witches.” He crooked his fingers, and several men carried Kyle in. He was fastened with red magic bands to a wood rail. The bands circled his chest, hips, and feet. His hands and head dangled. His face was covered in blood and bruises, and he was unconscious.

  “This one sought to trade his witch hexes and curses.”

  Shock coursed through Alexander. Kyle did what?

  Sterling continued. “We have no choice now but to obliterate this market and kill the vermin within. They may once have been your friends, they may even be your family, but they are the tools of Mephistopheles, and in this war, we cannot show them mercy. You must show them that God is to be feared; you must teach them that the devil and his ways are not welcome here. It is a lesson that can only be learned with blood and suffering. Gird yourselves for the battle you must fight. Now, go forth. Teach them well, my children. Teach them well.”

  With that, he rose into the air, pointing dramatically toward the market. His followers surged forward. Soon Alexander heard screams and the smashing of wood and glass. Billows of smoke rose in the air, and fire roared as it burned through the market.